


Take a Moment, Let it Pass

by kho



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Happy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-04
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-24 17:56:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6161718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kho/pseuds/kho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve is bathed in the last dregs of sunlight as the sun sets over the ocean and it frames him like a halo and he’s barefoot and digging his toes in the sand and his shirt is unbuttoned and the shirt underneath is skintight and the jeans are hugging his hips and ass and thighs like a second skin and Danny wants so bad he can’t quite catch his breath.<br/>(set near future, no real spoilers, warning for happy shmoopiness)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take a Moment, Let it Pass

**Author's Note:**

> This is not strictly speaking a sequel or even related to [All That You're Not Saying](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6115430) so much as it is just a counterpart in theme. That fic Steve stares at Danny and comes to a realization, in this one I switched POV's. It's also a juxtoposition because Steve can't say it, and Danny can't not.

Want. Want, like a physical thing. Want, like gotta have it. Want, like need. Like now. Like so bad it aches. Like fire. This is how Danny feels about Steve on a Thursday, after a nothing case, after a nothing day, after a nothing week. Want, and want, and want. So bad he can taste it.

They got Gabriel last month and two weeks ago he was found stabbed to death in the showers. The FBI has backed off, they’ve stopped asking questions. They may come back later, they may turn their lives inside out later and harass his Mom and try to use Danny to ruin Five O, but right now they’ve backed off.

Danny is happy. His team, his family is happy. Steve is happy.   Steve is happy like smile a mile wide happy, like smile stretched across his face from ear to ear happy. Steve is lighter than he’s been in months, and so is Danny, and the beers are good and the conversation is better, and everything is just so very, very quiet and pleasant.

Steve is bathed in the last dregs of sunlight as the sun sets over the ocean and it frames him like a halo and he’s barefoot and digging his toes in the sand and his shirt is unbuttoned and the shirt underneath is skintight and the jeans are hugging his hips and ass and thighs like a second skin and Danny wants so bad he can’t quite catch his breath.

And he can’t look away, so when Steve squints down at him and catches his eye he’s knocked back even moreso by the way Steve’s smile turns soft around the edges the way it does when he’s looking at Grace. It always, always makes Danny’s heart melt every time Steve looks at Grace that way and right now Steve is looking at Danny that way and Danny _wants_. He just wants.

“You okay,” Steve says, smile fading slightly.

“M’perfect,” Danny says, squinting up at him.

“Yeah,” Steve asks, turning to face him more fully. “Because you kind of look like you’re about to pass out.”

Danny shakes his head and clenches his hand around the beer bottle even harder. “I’m good.”

Steve steps forward and blocks the sun from Danny’s eyes, bends over and puts a hand on Danny’s shoulder and burns a hole in Danny’s skin in the shape of his fingers. “Really, cuz you’re kind of hyperventilating.”

“You need to just ignore me,” Danny says, barely able to push the words out. “It’ll pass. It always passes.”

Steve frowns and doesn’t move his hand. “What’ll pass?”

“It’s good,” Danny says softly, shaking his head. “We’re good. You’re good. I’m good. Just let it be good.”

Steve’s frown deepens. “Danny?”

“You were happy, go back to that,” Danny says, waving a hand and taking a sip of his beer. “Everything is good, I promise Steve.”

Steve squints down at him and his mouth quirks on a half smile and he snorts a little. “Are you so unused to happy these days it makes you panic?”

Danny snorts back and shakes his head. “Something like that, yeah.”

He keeps telling himself to just breathe through it. Just take a deep breath and wait. It’ll pass. It always passes. He’s been breathing through five years of letting it pass, and it’s mostly been working. Just look away, he’s telling himself. Look away, and drink your beer, and let it fade into that dull ache in the pit of your stomach that you can pretend away and live with.

Steve’s hand slides off his shoulder and cups his cheek, thumb rubbing down the side of Danny’s cheekbone slowly. It’s not the first time he’s done it, this weirdly intimate gesture that Danny thinks is some kind of Steve version of a ruffle of the hair. But the timing, the timing has never been worse, because Danny is already reeling and buzzing and as soon as Steve’s warm palm cups his cheek and his thumb traces his cheekbone he’s leaning into it, his eyes falling shut.

Because see, in Steve’s world maybe it means a hair ruffle, or a pat to the back. In Steve’s world maybe it means something innocuous and innocent. In Danny’s world though, it means something entirely different. In Danny’s world it means I love you. I adore you. You are precious to me. He does it to Grace. Rachel did it to him, years and years ago before the betrayal and the hurt and the anger. He did it to Gabby. His mother does it to him, did it to Matt, does it to all of his sisters.

“You were happy too, ya know,” Steve says, breaking the spell as his hand slips off of Danny’s cheek and Danny’s eyes fly open. “You know I can read you right? You were happy like two minutes ago but you just got all sad.”

“Not sad,” Danny says, swinging his arms out in an arc. “Simply having a moment. Haven’t you ever had a moment, Steven? People have moments. I have moments. I’m having one right now.”

“Well, come back to having a happy moment then,” Steve says grinning, opening his arms and gesturing as if to say look around us, look at all we have to be happy for. And yeah. It’s true. It’s true so Danny grins back. “Huh? Happiness.   We gotta grab it when we can, Danny.”

Danny extends his beer and Steve taps it with his own, and nods. “Grabbing. I promise.”

“Okay, that’s it,” Steve says and sets his beer down, reaches over and grabs Danny’s beer and sets it down to. “Stand up. Get up. Come on.”

Danny frowns up at him, at the hand Steve is extending to him. “What?”

“Stand up,” Steve says, grabbing his hand and hauling him up. He doesn’t let go, instead dragging Danny over to him and wrapping his arms around him in a crushing hug. It fills Danny’s soul and crushes it at the same time. “Come on man, hugs are no fun unless they’re returned.”

Danny pulls Steve closer and squeezes him tight to him, closes his eyes and spreads his fingers wide over Steve’s back and wants so hard it hurts. “I’ve tried, I’ve tried so hard for so long to get past this, and sometimes I think I have but really I don’t think I ever will.”

Steve pulls back and grasps his shoulders. “What?”

“I’ve tried so hard to get over it,” Danny says, panic setting in when he realizes he’s actually doing this, he’s actually saying this, and he can’t stop himself. “And it really will pass, Steve, it will. I just have to give it time to pass, because it comes in waves, see, it comes in waves and I want you so bad and so hard that I literally ache with it and can’t breathe and can’t see straight but if I wait it out, Steve, if I wait it out it’ll pass.”

“Want,” Steve asks, frowning at him again.

Danny nods and slides his hands down Steve’s arms and back up again. “You have no idea,” he says, laughing lightly. “Like yearning, like pining, like fucking Byron and Bronte, ridiculous type want, so when I say I’m having a moment, okay? Steve when I say I’m having a moment that means I need you to just let me have that moment so I can get it to pass.”

Steve’s hand is back on his cheek again and Danny closes his eyes against it because he can’t look at Steve’s eyes right now or he can’t be held responsible for whatever actions he might take. “You’re saying you want _me_?”

“I’ve been trying to get past it for years, Steve, but it’s obviously here to stay so you just have to let me have my moments, okay,” Danny says, finally opening his eyes to meet Steve’s. “Can you do that? Can you just let me get through it until it fades until the next time?”

Steve smiles huge and big and blinding down at him and shakes his head. “No.”

Danny frowns, his mouth working. “No. I’m sorry. No? Did you just say no?”

“No, I will not give you a moment to stop wanting me,” Steve says, shrugging and laughing. “I won’t.”

“Uh.” Danny pulls back slightly, taking half a step away before Steve’s grip on his shoulder tightens so he can’t get further away. “It’s not actually all that funny of a thing to me? So if you could see fit to not laugh at me that’d be really fantastic of you.”

“Not laughing at you,” Steve says, his thumb stroking down Danny’s cheek again, achingly slow and tender. “Laughing with you.”

“Oh I see, that’s funny,” Danny says, leaning into the touch even as he tells himself not to. “Because laughing _with_ someone implies mutual mirth, and I don’t know if you noticed but I’m not laughing.”

“You will be,” Steve answers, still grinning, sliding his fingers under Danny’s chin to tilt his head up.

“Sound pretty sure of that,” Danny whispers.

“Oh I am, because see, this wanting thing,” Steve says, pointing between the two of them. “I thought it was just me.”

Danny’s hands still on Steve’s arms. “You thought it was just--”

“So I’d really rather you not wait it out until it passes,” Steve says, leaning closer. Their eyes are still locked and Steve’s breath brushes over Danny’s lips. “I’d actually really rather you hold onto it.”

Danny splays a hand over Steve’s heart and holds it there, holds him there. Holds him _back_ as he tries to lean forward into Danny’s personal space.   “Steve, what are you saying?”

Steve tries to lean forward again but Danny holds him back firmly so Steve reaches up and swats his hand away, wraps his arms around Danny and hauls him closer. “I’m saying it’s mutual, idiot.”

“Excuse me, did you just call me an idiot,” Danny starts, but then Steve’s lips are on his and he forgets whatever it is he was annoyed at to begin with because he wants, and he’s wanted for so long, and now that he knows what Steve’s lips feel like against his he only wants him more. He pushes him back. “Steven?”

“Daniel,” Steve breathes against his lips, forehead resting against Danny’s as Danny closes his eyes to regain some semblance of composure.

“You’re not fucking with me?”

“I’m not fucking with you, no,” Steve says, pulling back to give him a look. “Do you really think I actually would?”

Danny opens his eyes and searches Steve’s, sees that same fond smile, the same smile he uses on Grace, the same smile he directs at Danny so much. Feels Steve’s hand on his cheek, his thumb stroking down slowly and thinks maybe what that means in Steve’s world is actually a hell of a lot closer to what it means in Danny’s world than he’d ever realized.

“I can have,” he asks, breathless as he digs his fingers into Steve’s shoulders.

“Have, take,” Steve says, leaning forward and nipping at his lip. “Keep.”

“Forever,” Danny breathes against his mouth as they kiss.

“Fuck yes forever,” Steve says, stepping into him, gripping him tighter and deepening the kiss. “Better be forever.”

“Swear to God it will,” Danny says, crushing his mouth against Steve’s. “Promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr here under [@lovethesnark](http://lovethesnark.tumblr.com). 
> 
> Fanfiction Website  
> MOST of my fic is not on AO3, though all of my H5O and beyond is as AO3 didn't exist yet and it was too much to archive. It can be found on my website at [LoveTheSnark.com](http://www.lovethesnark.com).


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